Fourth Wall

Written by Walter Jon Williams

Narrated by Andy Paris

Walter Jon Williams regularly draws praise for pushing the limits of the science fiction genre. His third novel featuring AR (augmented reality) games designer Dagmar Shaw, The Fourth Wall follows Sean, a washed-up child actor recruited to star in Dagmar's latest movie project. But when people on set start dying, Sean wonders if Dagmar's secretive behavior is hiding a more dangerous game. "Williams and Dagmar fans will rejoice, and it should attract the near-futurists and techno-thriller crowd as well."-Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781470324032

Walter Jon Williams

 Walter Jon Williams is a New York Times bestselling author who has been nominated repeatedly for every major sci-fi award, including Hugo and Nebula Awards nominations for his novel City on Fire. He is the author of Hardwired, Aristoi, Implied Spaces, and Quillifer. Williams lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Kathleen Hedges.

Reviews for Fourth Wall

[cissa_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this novel in a lot of ways.The POV character, Sean, rather weird but personable and believable. The secondary characters, too. And the plot is pretty tight yet convoluted, and ends up mostly making sense.(Mild spoiler here, though it's in the firs 100 pages) One of the foci of the plot rests on Sean's guilt for "killing" a friend. And yeah, the friend died. However, I think if 2 people drunker than lords decide to drive vehicles, and while trying to avoid a collision one of them dies- well, this is not at ALL the same as premeditated murder. Culpable? oh, yeah. But it's not premeditated murder (like others were getting up to). So that struck me wrong, especially as a motive.Still, a fun twisty plot with good writing and characters.And I think I will put blocks on the cameras my various devices have. :)

[joeydag · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I didn't realize this was in a series. I thought there were some good points. The plot moved quickly. The protagonist is quite self-aware yet simple. There is a lot of satire but not enough science fiction.

[tcwriter · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The third in Walter Jon Williams' "Dagmar" series, The Fourth Wall is a near-future thriller featuring Sean Makin -- a child actor whose life and career cratered, and whose future seems to rest on an interactive movie being created by Dagmar (the heroine of the first two novels in the series).

In the first two installments, Dagmar was the central character; in this, the story is told from Makin's perspective.

I'll admit to a little disappointment; narrating the novel using a new character is a typically Williams-esque creative twist, but unfortunately, the Makin character isn't as compelling to me as Dagmar was in the first two installments.

The book is fun and offers more than a few zippy (and cynical) twists, though overall, the plot felt a hair contrived, especially compared to Deep State, a grippingly interesting novel with an engrossing theme.

The Fourth Wall is fun (the digs at Hollywood were hilarious, and as always Williams offers up a string of interesting observations about the future of media) and I plowed through it, but it lacks the gravitas of the prior two books, and the science fiction element felt grafted on.

I liked it and would recommend it to a friend -- but only after they'd read This is Not A Game and Deep State first.

[agingcow2345 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is less the third book in the This is not a Game/Dagmar series than a third book in that universe. It is a near future seen from the POV of the gaming [and in this case movie/celebrity] industry/s. The characters are excellent. The action is wonderful. The man clearly knows the industries and types he is skewering. I thoroughly enjoyed it...until the end which was the sort of let down one frequently gets in middle volumes in series [which AFAIK this isn't]. If you ever read Heinlein's Glory Road you will understand the feeling. Enough loose ends are tied together but in the most obvious of ways and then it just sort of ends. If that disturbs you this is a pass which is sad because 90% of the way through it was a hell of a ride, enough so that someday I may reread it. Would not have even taken much more length to make the ending more fun...IMO. YMMV.